Eastman Johnson

Sugaring Off

Johnson chose a humble subject, but this grand-scale work was intended for a merchant’s carpeted salon—not the front rooms of the rural folks in the painting. In the days before “social media,” entire communities looked forward to occasions when everyone got together. Johnson captured the rascal kids, the fiddler, the young couples flirting, the returned veterans still wearing parts of their uniforms, all gathering in late fall to boil down sap collected from sugar-maple trees.

He first blocked out the scene in oil, then used the margins to try out ways to best shape his caricatures. These sketches were for his eyes only and would have been covered by layers of glaze and scumble as the process went forward.

Johnson traveled to Europe to acquire the skills needed to become a great figure painter. His reputation in America later surged with the popularity of his detailed paintings of 19th-century rural life. In the early 1860s he began a series that chronicled maple-sap harvesting at a camp at Fryeburg, Maine.

In this lively, unfinished version, Johnson’s preparatory drawings and expressive under-painting indicate groupings planned for the final scheme. Poses, gestures, and details of costume contribute to a convincing enactment of communal engagement at time when the country was recovering from the devastating conflict of the Civil War.

Johnson chose a humble subject, but this grand-scale work was intended for a merchant’s carpeted salon—not the front rooms of the rural folks in the painting. In the days before “social media,” entire communities looked forward to occasions when everyone got together. Johnson captured the rascal kids, the fiddler, the young couples flirting, the returned veterans still wearing parts of their uniforms, all gathering in late fall to boil down sap collected from sugar-maple trees.

He first blocked out the scene in oil, then used the margins to try out ways to best shape his caricatures. These sketches were for his eyes only and would have been covered by layers of glaze and scumble as the process went forward.